Saint Paul Public Schools
Using Adjectives to Describe a Busy Street Scene
What just happened in the street? After several introductory activities about adjectives and description, pupils use all that they have learned to compose a paragraph about a hectic intersection.
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Pair-Share: Constructing Paragraph Order
Young scholars write with controlled and/or subtle organization. They identify the main idea and explicit details. Students analyze paragraph and essay structure. They utilize context clues to identify organization.
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Writing an Information Paragraph on a Villain
In this villain instructional activity, students fill out facts sheets, information planning sheets, and more to write an information paragraph on a villain. Students complete 5 activities.
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End of Unit Assessment: On-Demand Informational Writing: Philo Farnsworth’s Invention of the Television and How It Changed People’s Lives, Part I
On-demand isn't just for TV anymore. Writers complete their end of the unit assessment with an on-demand writing task. They read the article Television and answer questions about the gist, vocabulary, and content. They then complete a...
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Speech Writing: Identifying Criteria for a High-Quality Introduction
Using a helpful resource, pupils watch a TED Talk of an opinion speech as they consider the criteria for a high-quality introduction. Scholars then engage in a shared writing process with the teacher to practice writing the introduction...
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Analytical Essay
What is an analytical essay? Introduce this type of thinking to your young writers. First, discuss what it means to analyze something. Then, identify the different components of an essay and what details are embedded in each component....
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Language Arts: Laws of Life
Learners participate in the iEARN Project by completing a questionnaire about values and lessons they have learned. They read sample essays by other students in the project about their views on the laws of life. They then write and post...
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The Wild Life: Writing Exercise
In this description activity, students describe a typical summer morning in a teepee village. Essays should include introductory paragraph, body paragraph, and concluding paragraph.
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The Raven: Creator of the Universe?
Students explore biology by researching birds in class. In this raven identification lesson, students utilize the Internet to identify the anatomy, habits and habitat of ravens. Students write descriptive paragraphs about ravens and read...
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Capitalization
In this capitalization worksheet, students read a passage and circle all the words that should be capitalized. Students circle many words in this 8 paragraph passage.
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Researching and Writing in the Jungle
Students practice research and writing skills. They pick an animal to resarch from the template chioces and write a paragraph about the animal. In addition, a digital camera is used to insert student pictures onto the slides.
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The Aliens are Coming!
Pupils create an alien and write a descriptive paragraph about it using all five senses.
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Sustainable Development
Young environmentalists use a conference format to reach consensus on ways to slow deforestation and promote sustainable development. Class members are assigned roles to play during the conference, and work on posters and a public...
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Civil War Essay
Upper graders explore equality by writing an essay. They read the story Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco, and discuss the meaning of the story and its relevance to Civil War events. Learners investigate the five writing process steps and...
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Arctic Writing
Fifth graders analyze photographs in order to write descriptively. In this descriptive writing lesson, 5th graders use the Internet to research and view photographs of the arctic. Students use descriptive language to write sentences...
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How Cell Phones Work
Fifth graders are introduced to the text, LITERACY LINE viewing the contents page. They review the definition of explanatory writing; discussing the features used and complete a KWL chart to identify what they already know about how a...
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The Breakfast Busters Persuade Others
Students write persuasive essays about their favorite breakfast cereal after seeing how advertisements are used to influence people.
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Drugs Info
Fifth graders understand the effects of substance abuse and then in pairs, they use a KWL chart to assess their prior knowledge of drugs; healthy and unhealthy. Then as a whole group, 5th graders provide feedback and are introduced to...
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Dear President Obama
Students write letters to the president as he begins his term. In this letter writing lesson, students discuss goals they hope the president will consider, and send good wishes to the president and his family. After the letters are...
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Writing a Good Introduction
Fifth graders use a list of transitional words and hooks in order to write a good introduction. In this writing lesson plan, 5th graders view and discuss a PowerPoint presentation on introductions.
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Happiness is A Warm Puppy
Students investigate dog breeds and write a short story from a dog's perspective. In this dog research and writing lesson, students watch the film, "Dog: The Early Years. They apply critical thinking skills to determine which type of dog...
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Does the Seed Matter?
Students compare the growth of watermelon from commercial seeds and those harvested from a watermelon. They complete science journals showing these comparisons based on the data they collect.
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SCI-FI TALES
Fifth graders brainstorm known features of science fiction books and titles read. They pair up and discuss the possible physical characteristics fo a creature that could appear fron an excerpt of SCI-FI TALES.
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Internet Pen Pals
Students write letters to e-mail pals and respond to letters received. Students describe the geography of their community to their pals.